Israeli Army Calls for Evacuation of Gaza City Residents

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The Israeli military on Saturday announced that Palestinians in Gaza City, the largest urban area in the enclave, should relocate to the south, cautioning that military operations were underway throughout the city.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted on X that residents should vacate the city and move to a specified coastal area at Khan Younis in southern Gaza, promising that those who left would have access to food, medical assistance, and shelter there.

This offensive risks displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians seeking refuge there from almost two years of conflict. Before the war, roughly a million individuals, making up nearly half of Gaza’s population, resided in the city.

The military has been conducting intense strikes on the city for weeks, advancing through the outer suburbs, and this week troops were just a few kilometers away from the city center.

Landmark Gaza City tower targeted

On Friday, the Israeli military bombed a high-rise building in the city’s west that it said was being used by Hamas for surveillance and that civilians had been warned beforehand.

Palestinians said the strike targeted the Mushtaha tower in Rimal, an upscale neighbourhood before the war.

The military did not provide any evidence that militants were using the building.

Smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike on a high-rise building in Gaza City, after the Israeli army delivered a prior warning. Source: AAP / Yousef Al Zanoun

Photos of the building taken before Friday’s strike showed that its roof was already heavily damaged from earlier raids.

Footage showed the moment the building was struck, collapsing moments after impact and sending thick clouds of smoke billowing over nearby tent camps sheltering Palestinians.

The building’s management issued a statement saying that it was being used for Palestinians displaced by the war, denying that it had been used for anything other than civilian purposes.

Across the strip, 30 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military on Friday, including 20 in Gaza City, Gaza’s health ministry said.

New Hamas hostage video released

Hamas has released a video of two Israeli hostages seized from a music festival in Israel in October 2023, and one says he is being held in Gaza City.

Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel are two of 48 people still being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, with 20 thought to be still alive.

Palestinian militants took 251 hostages into the enclave following their cross-border assault on southern Israeli communities in 2023, which resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths and sparked the war.

Israeli hostage seen inside a car in Gaza City

Guy Gilboa-Dalal was at the Nova music festival in southern Israel when he was captured by militants amid their unprecedented attack nearly two years ago. Source: Supplied

The video was edited and featured an exhausted-looking Gilboa-Dalal speaking for about three-and-a-half minutes. He is seen in the back seat of a car for some of the video dated 28 August.

The Reuters news agency could not independently determine when the video was recorded.

Gilboa-Dalal says that he is being held in Gaza City along with several other hostages and that he is afraid of being killed by Israel’s offensive on the city.

Gilboa-Dalal appeared in a video in February being forced to witness other hostages being released during a temporary ceasefire. Hostages who have featured in similar videos and have since been released have stated that their captors instructed them on what to say.

Towards the end of the clip he is shown meeting another captive, Alon Ohel. It is the first video to be released of Ohel since he was kidnapped.

US-based Human Rights Watch has condemned Hamas and other militant groups in the Gaza Strip for releasing videos of hostages, calling it inhumane treatment that amounts to a war crime.

Israeli officials have described the videos as psychological warfare.

More than 64,000 Palestinians have since been killed in the Gaza Strip, local health authorities say, with much of the enclave left in ruins and its residents facing a humanitarian crisis.